


IX. a change of course, a second reckoning of sorts

by BubblyWashingMachine



Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [9]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Buried Alive, FebuWhump2021, Febuwhump, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Vanya Hargreeves, POV Vanya Hargreeves, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhappy Ending, Unreliable Narrator, Vanya Hargeeeves Whump, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, febuwhumpday9, how do I explain, must stress that this is not happy, not really but tagging to be safe, prompt is buried alive, she's like literally losing her mind, um just like whatever vanya was going through when she was in the cage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29308974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblyWashingMachine/pseuds/BubblyWashingMachine
Summary: She screams at them, infuriated, without words, raw animal sounds, and still they don’t let her out. Instead, they stand and debate and examine her like she’s a scorpion under glass, something venomous and terrifying. Klaus waves his hands around and takes a step forward, but Luther pulls him back. Diego and Luther yell at each other like they always do. The spark of hope flickers and goes out.She’s trapped....An exploration of one way the apocalypse might have been averted. (An alternate ending for season 1 episode 9.)
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves & Everyone
Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137428
Comments: 10
Kudos: 79





	IX. a change of course, a second reckoning of sorts

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly shorter one for you all today! Not because I didn't finish it, it simply turned out that way.
> 
> Not a happy one, features character death. This IS febuwhump after all. If you think I missed any tags let me know! 
> 
> Title is from the Metric song 'Speed the Collapse' - very fitting for the prompt 'buried alive', wouldn't you agree?
> 
> Cannot stress enough that vanya is an unreliable narrator and is having SOME kind of psychotic episode,, i mean idk why the show never really explains why she literally hallucinates her 13-year-old-self doing an Evil Child voice but anyway, that's what's happening here

Vanya screams.

She throws herself at the door over and over, sobbing, begging. Eventually her fists go numb.

_No! No, no, no no no. Guys? Guys, please, let me out! Let me out!_

On the other side of the thick foggy glass, her brothers – not Five, though – stand under a sickly blue light and stare at her. They don’t move.

Vanya feels anger, an emotion that’s relatively new to her, crackle deep inside her chest, twisting her fear into resentment. Still, she slams her arms against the unmoving slab of metal, the spiked walls squeezing tighter around her until she can hardly breathe.

_I didn’t mean it! Let me out! Let me out! I’ll kill you! I hate you!_

She screams at them, infuriated, without words, raw animal sounds, and still they don’t let her out. Instead, they stand and debate and examine her like she’s a scorpion under glass, something venomous and terrifying. Klaus waves his hands around and takes a step forward, but Luther pulls him back. Diego and Luther yell at each other like they always do. The spark of hope flickers and goes out. She’s trapped.

Vanya turns back to begging instead of anger, despair flooding her limbs and dragging her down. Sobs shake her body, and it feels like the whole room creaks and trembles around her.

The power inside her is terrifying – she hates it. She wants it all to go away. Can’t things go back to the way they were? Ordinary is better than this. She’ll tell them that. The lights flicker above her. Her brothers don’t let her out.

 _Please, please, please, I’ll be better, it was an accident, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please,_ she sobs, over and over and over. If she shows them how sorry she is, they’ll let her out. If she does what she’s told and stays quiet, stops breaking things, eats her oatmeal, takes her pills every day, practices when Leonard wants her to, leaves the lights on, everything will be fine.

She sees Allison, and her heart stops.

Allison.

_Alive._

Allison is alive. If Allison is alive, she’ll tell the others to let Vanya out. Vanya can say she’s sorry. Everything will be fine. Right?

Her sister comes forward and Vanya cries. _Allison!_ she says, banging on the glass desperately.

‘ _Your fault’_ is what Allison says, holding up a notepad. Vanya just wants to go home.

 _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please,_ she begs, and for a second it really seems like Allison is going to help her.

But Allison doesn’t. She’s too dead to do anything. Luther doesn’t. Klaus doesn’t. Diego doesn’t. Ben’s dead, Allison’s dead, Dad’s dead, Leonard’s dead, Five’s gone, and one by one everyone leaves the bunker and goes upstairs and then Vanya is alone.

_No, no, no, NO! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!_

She knows how pathetic she must look, how desperate with her bruised hands, bloody nails, wet face and puffy eyes, but she screams and screams until her voice is raw and empty. No words, just screams.

Eventually she curls up on the floor, covering her head to protect herself from the spikes.

“They’re still afraid of us,” says a voice, and Vanya pushes to her feet, turning her head wildly. But there’s no one there. No one coming to help her. Everything in this room is grey, grey, grey. “Even after all these years.”

Vanya runs to the glass, hopes for a second that Dad’s come to let her out, that she can go back to her room, that it’s Five out there and he’s found her. But all she sees is her own pathetic, trembling reflection, baby-faced and pale.

“And they’re right to be afraid.”

 _No, no,_ she says, shaking her head frantically, _no, let me out, I’m not bad._

“All we ever do is hurt people,” Number Seven says sympathetically, her voice quiet. “We hurt Allison. We hurt Leonard. That’s why they hate us. That’s why Five left.”

 _That’s not true,_ Vanya whimpers. _Five said he tried to come back. Leonard lied._

Her reflection’s eyes harden, the pain and loneliness still fresh in her mind, not yet numb to it the way Vanya is. “But he didn’t. _He_ knew we were bad. Dad knew it, Pogo knew it, Mom knew it, Leonard knew it, and now everyone else knows it too. That’s why they locked us in here.”

 _I’m sorry,_ Vanya says, shaking. It’s cold in here. Is that why her throat feels so tight? She struggles to breathe, the walls constricting her.

“So we can stop hurting people,” Number Seven goes on. “So that everything can go back to normal. Because we’re dangerous.”

 _I’m not! I’m not – not dangerous!_ Vanya lies, desperately.

“Then why is hurting people the only thing we’re good at?”

Around her, the spikes start falling, and the lights flicker violently, and go out. With the cracks in the walls comes sound, glorious, unbearable sound that finds Vanya and hums inside her. She thrashes. _No! I don’t want it!_

The only light she can make out is the pale blue rectangular glow of the window in the door, where Number Seven stands indifferently.

“This is what you wanted. You can hear them, can’t you?” Seven says softly. “The others. They’re afraid. They know you’re going to hurt them.”

Upstairs, she hears it. Her brothers and sister running for their lives while the Academy collapses into rubble around them.

 _No! I didn’t mean to!_ Vanya cries, covering her ears. Energy pulsates around her, a haunting white glow that lights up the room. It’s all her. _I won’t. I’ll stop it. I won’t hurt anyone anymore._ But the more she sobs the worse it gets, the noise magnified and painful inside her.

“We will. We’ll keep hurting people and they’ll keep throwing us in here and then one day, we’ll get so angry that we’ll destroy the whole world.”

 _I wouldn’t!_ Vanya says, gasping for breath. _I don’t – I don’t want to hurt anybody._ She can’t breathe, she can’t think, all she feels is fear.

“You will,” Seven says sadly. “You can’t handle all this power. It’s too much. You’ll kill everything.”

_No, no, no, no, I won’t._

“They’re going to keep you in here forever.”

 _They won’t, they won’t,_ Vanya sobs. _They’re our family._

“They’re afraid of us - it’s been us, all along. We’re going to cause the apocalypse that Five warned us about.”

Cold panic shoots through Vanya, making her shiver and choke. She thinks of her best friend, little Number Five, trapped all alone in a wasteland, and in her heart, she knows it’s true. She could do that. She could destroy everything.

_I won’t, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t._

“You will.”

 _No, I WON’T!_ Vanya screams, and the walls shake and crumble around her, chunks landing and crushing and hurting. There’s not enough air.

“You’re doing it right now,” Seven says, looking down at Vanya with pity, and then she disappears, and Vanya is alone.

Vanya screams and covers her head with her arms, crouching down into a ball, tucking her knees to her chest, crying. She’s wrong. She won’t.

She won’t do it.

She

won’t.

So Vanya does what Vanya does best.

She hurts.

And like a woman drowning, she drags the mansion down with her.

…

Luther, Allison, Diego, Mom, and Klaus scramble outside with time to spare, and stand back and watch in awe and fear as the Academy sinks inwards, imploding, disintegrating. It’s a magnificent spectacle, as it seems illuminated from within by an ethereal white light that destroys everything it touches and nothing more.

In the sky above them, storm clouds tumble and spark with energy, and rain begins to fall.

When the building finally crumbles in on itself, the whole block is flattened. The remaining Hargreeves siblings start to fight with each other in their usual fashion, distraught; Allison covers her mouth with her hand and cries as the rain pours down her face.

When Number Five blinks home, and stumbles, scraping his knees on the wreckage in shock, there is nothing to salvage, nothing left at all except rubble, dying flames, and the rest of the world.

And, deep underground, to be eventually dug out a few days later – one would-be world-killer is curled up inside a metal box, her bones crushed into pieces under tons of debris and concrete and metal and the entire weight of the Umbrella Academy.

It’s a fitting death.

The rain has stopped, the storm gone just as suddenly as it had appeared. Finally, there is quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> :( ok but imagine Five's reaction,,, I didn't wanna write more cause I liked the ending but imagine him just sorta freaking out, maybe breaking down and trying to dig her out, and the others are like Five... there's no point... ANYWAY IT'S FINE BECAUSE SHE CAN HANG OUT WITH BEN AND BE THEIR GHOST SISTER NOW SO IT DOESN'T MATTER
> 
> it's hard to take death seriously in TUA fics because I'm like ok so when is klaus going to summon them back chop chop
> 
> hope you uh,, enjoyed! that! leave a comment please if you would like! see you tomorrow :)


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